This blog is intended to cover side issues emerging from the discussions of artefact collecting (including metal detecting) on my "Portable Antiquities and Heritage Issues" blog. This allows answering misleading points which may require it without sidetracking of other discussions onto unrelated topics, thus freeing the main blog for more serious stuff.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

UK Metal Detecting: Tekkies and their Culture 24 comments

So, basically what the FLO is saying is that it was
"impossible" to secure the site and organize a proper investigation. Yet
that is what the Treasure Act Code of Practice says ALL finders should
be doing, so why not this one specifically, with the FLO actually on the
site ? FLOs are paid to get best practice, why was it not practised
here? Other hoards ARE secured and excavated slowly, and we get far more
information out of them than a Sainsbury's bag of loose coins.

I see nothing at all wrong with that. It is short, factual, to the point
and indicating the discrepancies in current policy and practice. And
the reaction of so-called 'responsible metal detectorists"? Did they too
express concern about the free-for-all we see on the Lenborough videos?
No, actually they did not. One can quite clearly pick out the
detectorists in that thread of 15 comments following mine, they are the
ones that cannot use capitals and axillary verbs. They come over as a
group of people intent only on denial and acting aggressively when an
issue is raised. They seem also oblivious to place and context and the
fact that readers of cultural media such as Culture 24 will not all see the world through the same yobbish eyes as themselves.

andrew fudge, salisbury 12 January 2015 06:42
Barford go get a life . You should take up another hobby you sad sad man

Shane Buchanan, Nottingham 12 January 2015 06:53
also has some 'helpful' observations which put detectorists in as good a light as they deserve:

Barford
it clearly states they couldn't make it secure and was a risk of night
hawkers [sic]. If they a [sic] FLO on site he [sic] knows what's best
for that situation. They [sic] could be any reason y [sic] it couldn't
of [sic] been left in the ground and secured. Just stop being so
negative you bell end
[sic]

" paul coleman, southampton" 12 January 2015 08:52 agrees:

An
FLO made the only decision she could make given the situation! She made
the comments at the time that she really would have liked another
option, but there wasn't one. She's an FLO, NOT A DINNER LADY.

"daniel bamsey, dorset" 12 January 2015 09:00

You
can't please all the people all the time, they done [sic] the best they
could. Would you have travelled there on a sunday a few days before
Christmas to do a 'proper' excavation? Even if you would [sic] have the
chances of it going missing before you got to it would have been vast.
Too much hate towards detectorist's [sic] because after all this would
never have been found, like so many treasures that sit in museums all
over the country, had it not been for good, honest detectorist's [sic].

First of all, some brainy individual organized and took money for an event to search for archaeological and historical artefacts on a known archaeological site in the few days before Christmas
and then decided that when an archaeological deposit was found by one
of his paying diggers, that the timing was inconvenient to do it
properly, that is hire a team to excavate and record the deposit carefully.
The site of course could have been secured, where there is
a will there is a way. It may cost the participants a bit more effort
and resources, but there is a million pound hoard of national
significance involved and they are "all responsible detectorists", so
why cut corners? Whose responsibility is the finding of this under these
circumstances? What is "responsibility"? Those people should take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
Mr Bamsey, neither the organizers, the finder, the landowner nor FLO
did "the best they could", because they could obviously have done a good
deal more than they did. And two of them are going to be holding their
hands out in the next few months for their million pound "reward" for what they did
and did not do.

Of course to do the best, you'd have to know what that
is, and it is the FLO's job to jolly well make sure they do. Here she failed to do that, but obviously is going to be the last person to admit it.
I am perfectly at rights to criticise her for that - and she is
perfectly at rights to show where I am wrong here or via the PAS
website, but instead she elected to do a garbled interview for a
Culture24 journalist.

Peter Atkinson, lincs 12 January 2015 09:02
reckons:

Barford, if it had been
secured and excavated over a period of 3 days instead of one you still
would have found fault with something. Your life is spent attacking UK
metal detectorists and PAS from Poland

He then gives a link to a text by John Howland (see below) on a US detectorist's blog and asks "any reader of you[sic] comment to
read this about you". Why, is not explained; there is no discussion in
the place indicated about the policies that led to this fiasco - just
personal attacks and false insinuations directed at me as usual. So, in fact, nothing related to my comment above.

Yes, Mr
Atkinson is right, due to the idiotic timing of the event, securing the
site just "three days" would have meant a team of excavators turning up
on December 25th, Christmas Day. That is obviously unsatisfactory and I would not be
the only one criticising them for organizing it in such a manner
unbefitting the gravity of the situation.

It is the organizers of
this commercial event and landowner who created this problem (including
by their choosing such a time for it), and it is their responsibility,
and theirs alone, to sort it out, by organizing a proper team and
securing the site until they can deal with the problem in a more
satisfactory manner. If not, then in my opinion, the Treasure ransom should be cut.

"Steve", Cambridgeshire 12 January 2015 10:02 however has got the right
idea. He agrees with me that the site could have been secured ("A hoard such as this needed to be lifted in one block when the area around the findspot was opened up and excavated properly"). Yep. 100% agreement. He's the only one though.

The so-called "Heritage Trust of Great Britain" (12
January 2015 10:31) want to express "a
big ‘well done’ to Ms Tyrrell, and all present on the day" and tip a nod to "the dedication of the British Museum" too. Alistair Mackay, Rothwell, Northamptonshire (Coinmac the coin dealer) 12 January 2015 11:00
also wants to congratulate Ms Tyrrell and the detectorists involved. He suggests that the FLO, as "the person on site (not sat at a desk in Warsaw)" would have used "her
best judgement, keeping in mind the location, weather, time of year,
and the fact that, under the circumstances, the find would rapidly
become public knowledge". But if the site is secured and a proper
team put in place, the fact it is public knowledge is neither here nor
there. The archaeological heritage belongs to everybody, so why would we
be in favour of keeping information from them? It is the public that pay for the PAS.

No metal
detectorist gathering would be complete without the ubiquitous John
Howland from Poole and his usual foul mouth and ad hominem remarks. Here
he is in full flow (remember the content of the comment I posted to which he pretends to be replying):

The problem [sic]
with Paul Barford is that one cannot believe anything he writes or
utters about detectorists, or the PAS, owing to his ingrained hatred of
both. His widely derided and discredited 'Artifact Erosion Counter' has
caused derision to be heaped on archaeology in spades. Compared to Ms
Tyrell, he is an undistinguished heritologist; 'archaeologist' being too
grander [sic] word to describe this incessant yapper.

Basically
I think readers of Culture24 can probably read and think for
themselves, so do not really need to be 'told' what to believe about
artefact hunting or the estimate of Heritage Action on the scale of
non-recording. What I actually wrote in my comment can be checked out from other sources.

There
was an opportunity here for "responsible metal detectorists" to show
their concern for doing things correctly and by the book and not causing
damage as a result of their hobby. There was an opportunity to show
that there are grounds for believing the constant optimistic
reassurances and assertions of the PAS about their 'partners'. But...

TAKE A GOOD LOOK at this behaviour,
for these are precisely the sort of people the PAS wants to grab more
and more millions of public quid to make into the "partners" of the
British Museum, archaeological heritage professionals and to whom they
want us all to entrust the exploitation of the archaeological record.
Take a good look and decide what you think about that as a "policy".

About Me

British archaeologist living and working in Warsaw, Poland. Since the early 1990s (or even longer) a primary interest has been research on artefact hunting and collecting and the market in portable antiquities in the international context and their effect on the archaeological record.